Yes, this is an actual competition that happens annually in Finland.
Despite the cancellation of the 2020 event — due to COVID-19 — WTF Productions Ltd. is already organizing the 2021 Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship on July 8th and 9th.
Heavy Metal Knitting? Yeah, it sounds pretty wild, right? That's because it actually is pretty wild.
They call it the "oddball of all sports, crafts, and hobbies" and was created during the darkest and coldest hours of the Finnish winter in Joensuu, Finland.
It's a fairly new sport, too, and came to fruition in 2018.
Here's the lovely tale of how it all started:
"The year was 2018 and the term was said aloud by a journalist in a radio interview covering local handcrafts professionals. Knitters were knitting for the whole duration of the interview (of course), which eventually led to the magical question that apparently no one had asked before: 'Is it possible for a knitter to knit eyes closed, hands behind the neck like Yngwie Malmsteen does play his guitar?' 'Well of course it is!', was the reply. And there it was. The idea of a knitter as a lead performer in a band playing heavy metal music. Let’s make it a competition!"
Having the championship in Finland makes perfect sense, too.
According to the Heavy Metal Knitting website, there are more than 50 heavy metal bands per 100,000 Finnish citizens and hundreds of thousands of knitting hobbyists. The organization figured that there "must be Finnish individuals who love both knitting and heavy metal."
In turn, there's got to be more metalhead knitters outside of Finland as well.
The first qualification round of the 2019 competition attracted 26 different acts from 13 countries from all around the world — all who were hoping to win the very first title of the Heavy Metal Knitting World Champion.
It's a bummer the 2020 World Championship was canceled, but I'm honestly really pumped that there's going to be a 2021 competition.
Now that I'm aware of such brutalness I'll be prepared to set some time aside to watch it.
By Matthew Sterner
